Every week I keep tabs on what’s trending, new technology and consumer habits that impact the social web. These are summed up in a round-up called Social Pulse. Sign up to get this in your inbox every Friday here.
SocNet Updates:
- Facebook’s new app design is coming for all users in September. As usual, people aren’t happy about UX changes on Facebook. Until they adjust, and then this design becomes “normal” Facebook, and they get angry when it changes next time. In other Facebook news, this week they launched new custom background tools for Messenger Rooms, an Instagram-like Shop tab, and an update to its Whale meme creation app.
- Twitter published guidance for social media community managers in using revamped Twitter Lists and is testing rebranding “Retweet with Comment” as “Quotes.”
- Pinterest is teaching us how to better use Adobe Spark to make Pins.
- This week was TikTok’s 2-year birthday! And the saga of who will buy TikTok has now added Oracle and Walmart to the mix, plus their CEO of three months resigned.
- Apple acquired VR social startup Spaces and is planning to bring AR content to Apple TV starting next year.
- Zoom apologized for their partial global outage, but as (online) schools continue to start around the country, look for more strained networks in the weeks to come. I wouldn’t plan any important streams on 9/8, for example.
The Event Industry’s Napster Moment is Here: Before Napster (then iTunes and Spotify), the music industry didn’t see the digital paradigm shift that would disrupt its industry. In the same way, Rafat Ali writes you can see parallels with the event industry not being prepared for our move to digital events, networking and even dating. Will we ever meet in person again? Definitely, but it will look different. Key quote: “It is important to point out that neither the music nor radio nor the news industry nor the TV/film industry died, it’s that the incumbent players were simply shunted aside by new companies without the institutional bloat and interests that nearly always keep incumbents from advancing to the next thing.“ Of note, Spotify has launched a virtual events feature already!
Touchless Shopping Adoption: In the COVID-19 era, we’re seeing a massive rush of adoption of touchless interaction including mobile payments at retail checkouts, QR codes being rapidly adopted for everything from restaurant menus to hotel check-ins, and “pay by face” being tested in LA this week. Will Whole Foods start piloting their whole hand scan technology to checkout? We’ll see.
The New Celebrity: The life of a paparazzo is informed by trends and “who’s hot” versus “who’s not.” And in March, the A-listers hid while Gen Z’s rising social media stars stayed in plain sight. That may be why you (and certainly your kids) know more about Charli D’Amelio’s love life than Ana de Armas’. The NYT writes about what’s happening in Hollywood, as shelter-in-place redefines “influence.”
Machine Learning to Help You Make a Sandwich: This week saw the launch of the world’s first end-to-end computer vision program for building optimal peanut butter and banana sandwiches. It’s potentially the best worst use of machine and deep learning I’ve seen so far. Certainly the most delicious.
Facebook is Building a Robot to Walk Around Your House: This week Facebook Labs shared the progress its AI research team has made in the realm of household robotics, including one that roam your house. Key quote: “To accomplish a task like checking to see whether you locked the front door or retrieving a cell phone that’s ringing in an upstairs bedroom, AI assistants of the future must learn to plan their route, navigate effectively, look around their physical environment, listen to what’s happening around them, and build memories of the 3D space.” This reminds us of the Samsung Ballie demo I saw at CES, where a little robot ball can detect a spill, direct your Roomba to clean it up, and even tattle on who did it.
Brain-Control Interface Demo is Today! Will we soon be writing this email by just thinking it? Elon Musk’s Neuralink neural lace company will be demonstrating a working brain-machine interface at 6PM ET today! Tune in here.
Tweet of the Week: You know those horrifying robot dogs that can climb stairs and haunt your nightmares? This week Unitree Robotics shared a video of one wearing a cute hat and dancing. Which is honestly just as haunting.
PSL Season Makes Trends: The pumpkin spice latte hit Starbucks for a release earlier than ever, and it took the social world by storm per usual. Here’s an updated #PumpkinSpice launch history timeline. And Last Week Tonight did its hilarious annual supercut of local news commenting the arrival of PSL season. Watch here: “Jill, you have to try it. Jill!” (note, some NSFW language here – who knew pumpkin spice was so… spicy?).
GREG SWAN 